Capt Amarinder’s response comes two days after Gurbaksh Kaur, 40, a resident of Rahon town near Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (earlier Nawanshahr), returned home after a three-month ordeal in Saudi Arabia

Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh took to Twitter on Monday morning to assure Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj that state police chief Suresh Arora had been asked to crack down on dubious travel agents who duped people looking for jobs abroad.

His response comes two days after Gurbaksh Kaur, 40, a resident of Rahon town near Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (earlier Nawanshahr), returned home after a three-month ordeal in Saudi Arabia. The whereabouts of her daughter, Reena Kaur, 23, are still not known.

They were offered work in Malaysia and paid Rs 5 lakh to the travel agent after selling 10 marlas of farm land in August. But they ended up working as house helps in Saudi Arabia, where they were kept in pitiable conditions. Their family shared their plight on social media after which the media highlighted the case. Amarinder took note and urged Sushma to help.

In his reply to Sushma’s tweet, Amarinder said, “I have directed the #DGP to crack down on all such recruitment agents @sushmaswaraj ji. We will protect our citizens at all costs.”

On Sunday night, Sushma requested the chief minister to file criminal cases against unscrupulous recruitment agents. “I have requested @capt_amarinder to register criminal cases and proceed against all recruitment agents who mislead and cheat our citizens.”

While announcing Gurbaksh’s return on Saturday, she tweeted, “ The daughter, Reena, will return soon.” Gurbaksh said life was hell in Saudi Arabia, where she worked 20 hours a day at the house of a landlord and his 20-member family.

“I was allowed to sleep only after 2am. I survived on leftovers. I was assaulted by the family and hit with sticks. I wasn’t allowed to step out of the house and one day simply thrown out,” she said. She was arrested as she was not carrying documents.

“The last I saw my daughter was in a hotel in Delhi three months ago. The travel agent said she had been sent to Saudi Arabia,” Gurbaksh added.